Thursday, May 04, 2017

Medieval Digital Maps

The Oxford Outremer Map is a thirteenth-century map of Israel and Palestine. The map also encompasses parts of modern day Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. The map seems to depict the region sometime between 1229 and 1244, when Christians had control of Jerusalem. The map itself was probably built to aide European pilgrims to Jerusalem.

The Fordham Medieval Digital Projects has created an interactive version of the
Oxford Outremer Map. The digital version of the map includes interactive place-names. If you click on a place-name on the map you can read a translation, a brief description and a link to view this location on a modern digital map.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi is the largest surviving medieval map of the world. The map is on display in Hereford Cathedral, UK. If you can't get to Hereford to view the map in person you can at least view the map online. Mappa Muni allows you to explore and examine the details of the map in a well designed interactive presentation.

The online version of the map includes a color enhanced view and a 3d Scan Factum view. The 3d view includes some interesting information about the vellum used to create the map and reveals important facts
about how the map was created and where patch repairs to the map have been made over the centuries.

The online Mappa Mundi includes a number of map markers that allow the viewer to explore locations on the map in detail. Jerusalem is at the center of the map and East is at the top. If you select any of the
markers you can view a close-up of the location and read about some of the cities, people, beasts and myths depicted on the map.

The Gough Map or Bodleian Map is the oldest surviving route map of Great Britain. The map probably dates back to the 14th or 15th centuries.

There is some debate over the age of the Gough Map and Linguistic Geographies has been attempting to answer the question of who made the map & when by examining the language and place-names used on the map. Their research of the map's language suggests that some of the map’s writing dates to around the 1370s. The research also found evidence that some of the place-names on the map have been overwritten at later dates.